Are the Beatles, like, new? Nah! But the Beatles content keeps churning with Beatles ‘64, a new doc produced by Martin Scorsese.
For Beatles ‘64, now streaming on Disney+, producer Martin Scorsese and director David Tedeschi compiled restored footage of the band’s first arrival in America, back in February 1964, when the quartet played the Ed Sullivan Show on CBS and their first US concert in Washington DC. Originally shot by filmmakers Albert & David Maysles, the footage combines with other archival material of the era to present the mood of America as Beatlemania hit its shores; new interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are featured, and Beatles ‘64 also includes appearances from Smokey Robinson, Ronnie Spector, Little Richard, and testimonials from fans who remember what the music felt like in the moment.
The Gist: Once the Beatles got here, the Maysles brothers filmed the combo over a period of 14 days, and that footage was eventually released in various forms, including The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit. But while Beatles ‘64 incorporates a lot of it, it also includes nearly 20 never-before-seen minutes. The result is a balance between what feels familiar – like pandemonium at the airport, and John, Paul, George, and Ringo cutting it up in their initial press conference – and entire stretches that, with the value-add of careful restoration, present the quartet in crisp, candid, and completely unstructured moments.
The new interviews with McCartney and Starr in ‘64 aren’t your standard sit-downs, either, but instead feature the surviving Beatles pursuing memorabilia from across their career, such as Ringo’s original Ludwig drum kit from their American performances, and reflecting on the live wire vibe that was America in 1964. “We learned it wasn’t quite the story,” Paul says of their expectations. But the Beatles themselves were discovering things, too, like the stink of classism from upper crust Brits in New York, who treated the working class boys from Liverpool like dirt. (Paul on these “posh” people: “We didn’t give a fuck.”) As the Maysles footage captures them cooped up in the Plaza Hotel, chatting with NYC radio personality Murray the K in what today would feel like a podcast, the documentary cameras also catch extended segments with the fans clamoring outside.
